The Age of Porn .... (2000 to the Present) -Mindgeek Gripe!

[John_fromNY]

Manwin / Mindgeek = the Evil Empire.

People who know me, on the FreeOnes forum, know that I'm a member of Manwin /Mindgeek's Brazzers website and their PornPortal (which consists of the websites Twistys, Digital Playground, Reality Kings, Mofos, Erito, Property Sex, Mile High Media, Fake Hub, and Female Fake Taxi. ) I am a very disgrunted member over there because Manwin / Mindgeek has turned Shap's landmark Twistys website into a farce. They've removed hundreds of adult models and pornstars from the database. Then on the sites they do own: Brazzers, Digital Playground, Reality Kings, Mofos, Erito (censored Japanese porn), Property Sex, Mile High Media, Fake Hub, and Female Fake Taxi, they're having their webmaster remove scenes because honestly they just don't work. Mindgeek refuses to fix, restore or remaster scenes. Then with photo galleries, they are having their webmaster remove pictures by the thousands. They are doing that because then they don't have to pay royalties out to the photographers whose work it is they've delisted. Paying members have no say in Mindgeek's agenda. There are no more places at the websites to complain and let the owners know how they (the members) feel. The websites have all had redesigns and new layouts done to them. If you look for something over there? The search engines don't work properly or they redirect you to something you didn't inquire about. Searching and navigation at the websites is terrible. If you want to add a website to the PornPortal, then expect to pay between $57 and $77 as a one time membership fee. That excludes the ability to download content. If you want that, then expect to pay another $15.00 per month. If you want the website outside of the Portal, then expect to pay $24.95 per month. For downloading abilities, then add on another $15.00 per month to create zip files of videos and photo galleries. That comes out to a whopping $40 per month to pay for porn. Here at Mindgeek, it is close to $500 annual ($479.40) Who does that? Okay, Amateur Alure is $38.00 per month or $300.00 in a year and that is kind of extreme. But with Manwin/ Mindgeek it has now all become about the money. That's all they are interested in. Look at any of the websites (Brazzers, RK, Mofos, DP, etc.) photo galleries there now. About forty pictures in a set. And it looks like the pictures were shot through a cell phone camera. Terrible quality. Lastly, Playboy Enterprises Playboy Plus and Wicked Pictures were at one time on the Brazzers Porn Portal. Mindgeek was managing the sites for them at the time. Playboy and Wicked Pictures management had their sites taken off the Portal because Mindgeek was in full ramp up of creating new layouts and redesigns of the websites. Playboy Plus and Wicked Pictures did not want their websites touched up and ruined. I guess Christy Hefner and Steve Orenstein had a big say in this to get their sites off the Mindgeek Brazzers PornPortal. Later, Steve Orenstein sold off his Wicked Pictures interests to Gamma Entertainment (Netherlands).

When Brazzers was good ...

Puma Swede

** This was before Manwin / Mindgeek owned them. Brazzers was an independent studio. This photo gallery consists of five hundred and fifty-one (551) solo pictures of Puma Swede. Overall twelve hundred fifty-six (1256) pictures (with Tommy Gunn). Now Mindgeek is having their webmaster remove both the galleries and the scenes by the hundreds. They're taking the photo galleries down because then they don't have to continue to pay royalties out to the photographer. They're taking videos down because they just don't work and Mindgeek never fixes them, doesn't remaster them or restore them.

[John_fromNY]

The objective of this thread is to express your gripes (Brazzers plus any and all of the sites) and to put up pictures and sample scenes that are no longer available at the websites because Mindgeek has had their webmaster remove the adult model/pornstar, the picture galleries or the scene from the database.

As I was telling a member on the board at FreeOnes the other day: Brazzers isn't a cancer. It's Mindgeek that owns them.

[WalterB]

I've visited a number of those sites in the past, but not too recently. Being 100, lol, I'm pretty happy just enjoying Vicky's VNA.

[John_fromNY]

Gret post Walt.

Offtopic. 100? Walt, new avatar? What happened? - Here's a song for you!

phpBB [media]

[WalterB]

Thanks, John.

I'm not really a hundred, but I'm trying to go for the sympathy vote . You know, "Oh, you poor old fart. Here, let me cuddle you...."

[John_fromNY]

Thanks, John.
I'm not really a hundred, but I'm trying to go for the sympathy vote . You know, "Oh, you poor old fart. Here, let me cuddle you...."

Walt - Always slick with the babes!

Speaking of old friends, how is Benny A. doing? And Dave45? Miss them.

[WalterB]

Last I heard, Benny was still doing good. I saw a Tweet from him not too long ago. I need to check in with him again.

Dave45 is, unfortunately, no longer with us. Dave had, I believe emphysema, and had gone on oxygen. Then he disappeared, and Zany found his obit.

[John_fromNY]

That's a bummer about Dave. Rest his soul.

Well at least Benny is doing good. Has he been on? Forum and/or cam shows. Who does the art for all of the websites now?

[WalterB]

Not sure who's doing the artwork today. But, no, Benny dropped out a few years ago.

Vicky, of course, does all of the various site updates. I'd bet she's working on a couple now.

[SamanthaGrace]

Wow! I am not surprised to hear this. Mindgeek has been questionable to me for many years. They've pulled some things that have left a number of performers and production people unhappy. I also know a few people who worked on the development web end there. They had had their own issues as well. I've been slowly waiting for their undoing for sometime now. Let's say there is a reason I never worked with Twisty's even if they were interested. Let's say, I had my own reservations about working for Mindgeek.

I am not surprised to hear they are upsetting the member base. This is the issue when companies are too big and become an monopoly. The good thing is, the business is changing again. More and more people are going directly to the performers and skipping the middle man. I believe things are better this way. It also shows why sometimes people are hesitant about membership sites. I always hear memberships are never worth it. But people join sites like OF. Which I think a network like VNA gives someone a better value. But I see what is happening. People feel taken advantage of with companies like Mindgeek, so they are hesitant about every website. One bad experience and they are worried all sites operate the same way. Think it is a standard for the industry because they own everything.

I dislike bad mouthing anyone. But it no secret I tend not to be a fan of Mindgeek. I believe most of the industry has similar thoughts.

[John_fromNY]

Thanks Samantha for responding.

Not all networks and websites are alike.

The Score Group has been remastering photo galleries and videos for over two decades. They make upgrades from 360p to 480p to 540p and 720p. They might even go up as high as 1080p when they are remastering the movies.

Bang Bros. (who has stopped updating the other sites in their network. This is due to production costs in Texas and in Florida where they shoot have become expensive.) Anyway, BangBros., takes scenes off and photo galleries off the websites and they remaster and restore the films and photos. They bring them back when completed.

Naughty America also has been updating videos and photos as well.

Lastly, Videosz.com has a vast catalog of older movies. They felt that they needed to remaster these and many of the other films. So they turned to Bang.com. Bang in turn has the technhology available to upgrade almost all of the Videosz impressive catalog. So far, the partnership that Videosz and Bang created has worked out good for both companies.

The difference between these companies is that they are willing to reinvest their funds back into the business. With Mindgeek, they don't invest a dime back into the sites they own. A perfect example of that, The Reality-Gang Network, i.e., Big Sausage Pizza, Euro Bride Tryouts, Milf Crusier and Adult.com.

Manwin / Mindgeek used much of the earlier funding to purchase most of the free tubes sites that were around. Besides acquiring Brazzers and Digital Playground and Twistys, Manwin acquired the rest of the Reality Kings Network that they didn't own through a hedge fund deal and a leverage buyout. It went sour pretty fast. Many of the other investors, such as Molly Cavalli's husband sold out to Manwin but they were not happy. Not happy at all.

And with Mindgeek, once a video is off the networks, it never comes back. Sure at one time, Mindgeek was doing that ... bringing full videos over to Pornhub Premium and partial scenes to Pornhub (the free tube site) when the Brazzers or Digital Playground servers were overloaded. But that was last done in 2018. However, almost eighteen months later in 2019 and 2020, they stopped bringing scenes over at all. And with the Girls-Do-Porn incident. All the lawsuits and legal troubles that have surfaced, Mindgeek has not allowed anyone who is not a verified member to upload videos. Now who over there verifies themselves? Well, those would be content owners, producers, directors, pornstars and adult models. Mainly the membership group of subscribers, are in the unverified ranks. No one is permitted to upload pictures at all.

Pornhub has become a vast desert. Picture tumbleweeds going by ...

(Yes, I certainly don't go over there to Pornhub much anymore. And I'm a Premium Member.)

[Davest]

I am no great fan of MindGeek either. Mostly because of what the hub and tube sites did to porn in general about 15 years ago. Yes, I know it was probably inevitable given the march of time, technology, and the Internet, but the more I learned about it, the saltier I became.

There is no comprehensive look at how much money hub and tube sites drained from porn, so I look at the music industry. If you look at the revenue history of the music industry before and after digital sharing, (here https://www.statista.com/chart/17244/us ... by-format/) you'll see that in 2014 the industry revenue was down two-thirds compared to 1999 and it is only this year that we'll be back to about where we were 30 years ago. I'm willing to bet same thing or worse happened in porn after the hub and tube sites began appearing in 2007-2008. And the biggest offenders were and are owned by MindGeek.

[John_fromNY]

Good post Davest. Yes, I seem to remember a list of all of the tube sites that Mindgeek purchased. Who was it @CGYMike or @Anthony_JK ? that had that illustration which showed the direct ownership correlation by Mindgeek and the applicable period of time of their purchase. It was a comprehensive list. Close to twenty or thirty tube sites.

[stickyvicky]

It's so funny that they charge $15 extra to have the right to download their content, when for years and years they were allowing downloads for free of everyone else's stolen content..

I'm sorry but they deserve everything they got coming to them.